Management of Disputes in the Construction Industry during COVID-19: Contractors’ Takeaways for Future Pandemics

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic intensified construction disputes. While dispute management has been widely studied, limited research has examined pandemic-induced disputes globally, especially within the Sri Lankan construction context. Hence, this study aims to investigate how to manage the disputes due to COVID-19 in the Sri Lankan construction industry, considering the contractors’ perspective. The study adopts an interpretivist philosophy and employs a qualitative Delphi technique involving two iterative rounds of semistructured interviews, thereby making a methodological contribution. The data were analyzed through manual content analysis. The findings reveal six positive impacts and 12 negative impacts of COVID-19 on the construction industry, along with suitable preventive measures to manage the 12 important causes of disputes arising from the pandemic. This is positioned as one of the limited studies identifying both positive and negative impacts and suitable preventive measures in managing the identified causes. The findings can be applied for developing contexts of a similar nature, particularly in managing disputes during future pandemics.